Good Things
by Redlance-ck
Summary: Sam's okay with waiting. Sam/Brooke


**Disclaimer: **Characters belong to Ryan Murphy, I'm just borrowing them so they can do my bidding for a while.

**A/N:** As always, a huge thanks to the awesome quatorz. This one… really wouldn't have been posted if it hadn't been for you, lol. 

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It's like an itch. Buried so deep inside of you, you can't get at it to relieve it and you can't remember what it was like not to carry it around with you. Always there skirting the periphery of your everyday thoughts, sometimes overtaking them so that it's all you can think about. Making you a slave to it, until you scratch and relieve it a little.

What's my itch? The unyielding entity that binds me in chains? It's the same old cliché. Like in every movie set in the old west, every Broadway play staring an - at first - unsavoury male lead, or any movie made in the last five years, my itch is a girl. And you know what's funny? She knows I'm bound, her slave for the taking, but she won't do anything about it. I mean, I get it. I know why. It's jut **really** annoying. Sometimes I think she doesn't do anything just to bother me. It wouldn't be the first time after all, but I know it isn't that. She's scared. And that she uses that as an excuse drives part of me crazy, because everyone is scared for every reason imaginable. It doesn't stop people most of the time. Sure, it slows them down, but eventually they come to grips with it and force it back far enough that they aren't trapped within its all encompassing gravitational pull.

Because I **know** she feels the same way I do. Just like we all know we have to breathe to survive and that some day we'll die. It's an unequivocal truth, just something we all have to deal with, and to be as intent as she is on **not** dealing with it is irrational. At least, I think it is.

I'm not perfect. I didn't wake up one morning, think, "Oh, I'm in love with Brooke. Awesome." and decide life was brighter. Things were dark for a long time. So dark I didn't think I'd ever find my way out of the position I'd landed myself in. But then there were these… things. Instances during which, like always, I'd catch myself staring at Brooke, only to find her staring back. She'd smile at me quickly and turn away, acting like she hadn't been staring at all - that our eyes had just happened to meet as she'd been turning her head. I remember the first time it happened, during dinner with the parentals. I think Mike was talking about work or something as equally mind-numbing to a teenager, I wasn't paying attention. I was playing with my food, making patterns in my mash potatoes with my fork and day dreaming about Brooke. Wallowing just a little in my darkness. Funny how doing something as simple as looking up can change everything. Because that's all I did, and when I found her staring at me - really staring - I felt this tiny ray of light break through the gloom and begin to crack the rest of it. After feeling the chill of an isolation none of my friends could imagine, I finally felt warm. I think it's a type of warmth only hope can bring.

Watching her walk past my open doorway from my bed, the warmth sends a tingle through me, as if reminding me its still there. Underneath the itch. Because after that night, after all the other times I've caught her gaze and she's held mine longer than she should, my hope stirred down in the depths of 'who-the-hell-knows-where' and finally began to rise. A smile curves my lips as my memory flutters back to that fateful night at the dinner table and how Brooke can deny how she feels all she wants - she'd had no idea what Mike had been talking about either when he'd asked her opinion.

So yes, Brooke is scared. And yes, it both pisses me off and inflates my ability to understand. But today is the day that changes. Because I've realised that most of my trauma is coming from the fact that we both know there is this thing between us, but neither of us have said anything. We've both been holding back for similar reasons - afraid of people finding out, what they'll think, fear of rejection and even having these feelings in the first place. I mean, come one, do you really think I ever thought I'd fall for Brooke McQueen? So that day when Brooke arrived after finishing cheer practise at the Zapruder headquarters where I was putting in extra time and she'd hung over me to see what I was doing… when I'd found myself swallowing hard as her hair brushed my cheek and closing my eyes as I breathed her in, and **enjoyed **it, the thrill that went through me had been one of pure fear. Because I couldn't have just done that, I couldn't be crushing on Brooke because I didn't do that. I hardly ever crushed in general, let alone on **girls**. Never mind the most perfect girl in all of existence.

And it was when that thought struck me, when the word 'perfect' reverberated in my ears, that I knew I was in trouble. But now it makes me smile. Getting to my feet and exiting my room to follow Brooke, it makes me smile because I know that the most perfect girl in all of existence wants **me**. And what knowledge can be more satisfying than that? Other than my afore mentioned knowledge that this will be the day things change. Because I'm tossing my gauntlet down, and I'm throwing everything out there.

I pause at the top of the stairs to listen. I can hear her milling around in the kitchen, humming a Backstreet Boys' song in the most endearingly, cute, off-key kind of way. I realise that I'm in pretty deep. A few months ago I would have strode into the kitchen and made some unnecessarily snide remark about her being tone deaf, but now it just makes me smile like a goofy idiot. Ugh, I'm in so deep my feet might as well be dangling toes up in China.

My socked feet don't make a sound as I descend the stairs to find she has her back to me, body stretched as she reaches for something sitting on the top shelf in the cupboard. After months of doing it reservedly, being at ease with what I'm about to do allows my eyes to travel freely over her. I know I sound like a broken record, but I don't care anymore - she's so perfect it almost hurts my eyes to look at her. But I'm willing to endure the pain, because I can't not look at her. It's like there's some kind of physical entity inside of me that just, won't allow me to keep my eyes on anything other than her when she's occupying the same space as me.

It's so stupid when I think about it now, that I held back for so long, didn't allow myself to feel this. This all consuming sense of longing, of need. A potentially explosive mix of love and lust, the best part of which is knowing she feels it too. But I was so scared by it and how strong I felt, it literally made me crazy. I lashed out, was a complete bitch to her which then somehow made me turn into a PMS monster around my friends. Then I realised what was going on with me, got even more pissed, and then things eventually became less argumentative between us, less crazy. At least, there was less risk of us killing each other.

But apparently, considering what I'm about to do, there's still some crazy left over.

She still hasn't shown any indication that she knows I'm in the same room as her as I stalk towards where she's standing. I can feel myself slip into a kind of predatory mode, it's foreign but somehow I'm comfortable in my suddenly alien skin. Like I've been body-snatched, but I'm okay with it. My eyes trail across that exposed skin again, torturing myself and loving every second of it. I don't care what that says about me. My fingers twitch. I can feel them but I can't stop it, they're aching to reach out and touch as I get closer.

And then suddenly I'm closer than I thought I was and she's backed into me. My hands meet her hips to steady ourselves without thought and I barely stop my breath from leaving me in a noisy exhale as my thumb and first two fingers touch her skin. Why is it that even when I fully intended on touching her, it still shocks me?

"God Sam, you scared me." Brooke says breathily after jumping about a foot in the air and spinning to face me. Her eyes are wide and her pupils have dilated. Her skin feels like it's burning my fingers, but I don't make any attempt to move my hands. I probably should have when she'd turned to face me, but sometimes it's like she's made of magnetic crazy clue.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to." And it's during the pause that follows that I see Brooke's eyes flick downwards and then back to my own, a silent query about the position of my hands and why they're loitering showing on her face. I want to jump ahead and answer it right away, but I don't. She's teased me with chaste touches and glances that linger longer than they should, literally driving me to this brink of insanity. So now it's my turn, and I'm already enjoying every second. There's something in the back of my head telling me I should be nervous, that I might be wrong, and for a millisecond I wonder if I could have maybe misinterpreted things.

Then I see her take a deeper breath than usual. I see her wet her lips and hesitate before she turns back to what she was doing. She doesn't shrug off my hands, doesn't draw any real attention to where they are, just turns in them and I know that I've been right all along.

I finally move my hands, sliding them down and then away from her. She goes back to preparing what I now can see is a salad and I can't resist rolling my eyes. I can't count the number of times I've seen her eat one carrot too many and call herself fat, or only eat half of the dinner Mom cooked for us, or stare at her reflection a little too long in the Novak. Every time it drives me insane. Why can't she see what the rest of the world sees?

"Why are you eating that?" Brooke freezes and it doesn't take me long to realise that the one thing I actually hadn't planned on saying might have just ruined everything. Why do I have this habit of sticking my foot in my mouth whenever she's around? It seems like every possible hurtful or stupid thing I could say, somehow finds its way out. I could be thinking about cheese at the exact moment I say something idiotic about her mom leaving. Completely unrelated, but somehow the thought is there and out it'll pop.

"I don't need to be grilled about my eating habits, Sam. Especially not by you." Okay, ouch. Not denying I deserved it but what the hell is that supposed to mean? Especially by me? I need to focus. Too much planning has gone into this. I haven't been working up the nerve to do this only to bail because I said something stupid. If I'd backed out on everything because of that, I'd never have gotten anything done.

"I'm not grilling you." Somehow I manage to retain an air of nonchalance, trying to slip back into the predatory skin I'd shed moments ago. The fact that she doesn't turn to face me makes it easier. "I just meant that you don't need an all-salad diet. Or a diet of any kind." Gathering myself and hoping my nerves don't shake my voice, I step closer until there's barely in inch separating us. "You're pretty perfect the way you are." Brooke spins again, my mission to startle her into repeating her earlier movements succeeding. Our proximity is closer than before and I see her react to it immediately. Oh yeah, I was never wrong. I watch her lips part to pull in deeper breaths and feel her body inch backwards until she's pressed against the counter, but she smiles with faux-ease.

"Great, you've been replaced by a pod person. How do I explain that to people?" She's so cute when she's flustered and trying to make a situation go away by making a joke out of it. I know she's hoping that'll be the end of it but I'm not about to let it go.

"What, I can't give you a compliment now?" I ask, letting an eyebrow arch slowly. Her smile falters and she looks as though she's giving my question some serious thought for a second or two, then rolls her eyes.

"Sam-"

"Brooke." I shoot back at her with a sly grin before she has chance to finish her sentence and it effectively stops her from speaking. Never in a million years would have I dreamed anything I could do would render Brooke McQueen speechless. Seems like she always has a comeback for everything. Pulling my gaze from her, I lean forward to reach around her, making sure every available inch of our bodies touch where possible. I retrieve the slice of carrot I don't really want but can't resist taking, and pull back to look at her. She looks confused, excited, afraid and I think even a little annoyed that I just took some of her food. Her eyes drop to the piece of orange vegetable in my hand and her words slip out quietly.

"That's mine." The absurdity of the statement paired with the situation I'm currently putting us in almost makes me laugh, but the opportunity she has presented me with by saying those words is enough to stop the laughter in favour of taking advantage of it.

"Oh yeah?" I shoot back, lifting the carrot, and her gaze, to my mouth. "Come and take it." I bite it gently with my teeth to hold it in place and close my lips around my half, smirking with one side of my mouth and staring her down. I can practically feel the rush of heat as it sweeps through her and lights her cheeks, making them flare and turn the most endearing shade of crimson. I feel like I've just struck gold or oil or something. I never imaged anything could cause this much of a thrill, this kind of an adrenalin rush. Barring parasailing and sex, from what I've heard.

The twitching of her lips tells me she's trying desperately to just laugh this off again, but her body and brain won't let her. She's trapped, like a deer caught between a car and a dead end. Wide-eyed and with nowhere to run. I press the tip of my tongue against the end of the piece of carrot and wiggle it, before taking the rest into my mouth and quickly disposing of it. I don't think she's even blinked yet, but her chest is heaving, so I know she isn't dead.

"Too late." I say, my voice lilting forlornly. "But I can think of something else you can take." Her whole body jerks into motion at my words and at first I can't tell if she's pissed, upset or just really intent on getting away from me. In fact, I'm so caught up in trying to decide that she almost makes it past me to the stairs, but my hands react of their own free will and grab hers just in time. Gripping her left and spinning her back to me, I'm shocked to find that I meet little to no resistance. Just a frightened, unsure face and eyes that glint with the faintest shimmer of excitement.

"Sam, what-"

"Brooke, I swear. If you ask me what I'm doing, I'm going to beat you with a cucumber." And somehow I manage to make the threat sound serious enough that she doesn't finish her question. She just stares at me. Waits for me to continue talking, like my words are the coals she needs to start her engines. "I'm tired of playing games." Because even high school reporters know that honesty really is the best policy. But we also know that sometimes it takes a little more to get to the bottom of things, so I step right back into her personal space. "Aren't you?" And Brooke looks like she wants to say something, she really does. But her breath is coming quick and she's looking down at me like she wants to move but can't, and it's obvious she's torn.

"Sam…" But she tries anyway, and I can't help but love her more for it. I press a finger to her lips to silence her and take a second to enjoy the thrill that goes through me at the touch.

"It's okay." Her lips are trembling, and it makes me wonder if the rest of her is too. I get distracted by it and replace my finger with my thumb, brushing it along the length of her lips until they part with a quiet gasp. "You don't have to say anything. I already know." The fear in her eyes gets amped up a notch for all of two seconds before it's dampened again and relief comes to stand next to it. "But I also know that you're afraid, and I get that. I do." I move my hand to cup her check and stroke it softly with my thumb. "But I'm not. Not anymore. I want you, Brooke." Her legs move, brush mine, and something inside me is giggling because I think her knees just almost buckled. "I want you so bad that sometimes I don't know why I don't just burst into flames. But I can wait. You know why?" Her head shakes beneath my hand, and I can't help it. I paved the path wide open for this one. "Because I know…" I can feel my lips curl into a smirk, swear I hear a tiny whimper escape her. "That it'll be worth it." It's all out there now, there's nothing left to lose, so I tilt my head up, and press a kiss to her cheek, but close enough to her mouth to make her wonder later on what would have happened if she'd just turned her head. "When you decided it's okay to love me, I'll be waiting."

And when I turn from her and my feet carry me back upstairs, I can feel her eyes following me as I leave, burning a hole into my back. Begging me to turn around and finish what I just started. But I don't, I'm content to leave the ball in her court, because I know exactly what I want, who I want and I don't see the point in playing the game anymore. Not when I've already won and I'm just waiting to get my prize.

And I'm okay with giving Brooke a little time to figure it all out, because good things come to those who wait. And I've waited a long time.


End file.
